It's a giant leap of faith—some would think it impossible. To imagine that the red-eyed monster that lay on the ground, screaming words that you never would have said, could be anything but purely evil—it's not an easy thing to do.

But I believe it anyways. And I'm the only one.

You were always so reserved around anyone else. Not that you were ever shy, but you never allowed anyone but me to see what lay beyond the laugher that was often faked, and the words that sometimes rang of insincerity. When someone did manage it, you avoided them, sometimes forever, because you were afraid of what they saw in you, and afraid of what they would say.

Only when the doors were shut and the room deserted would you tell me what lay on your heart—how, when you had seen this child die because you had been too late to save him, it felt as though you had been murdered yourself. How, even though you were a Jedi of over ten years, it still hurt to kill. How, when you were alone in bed at night, you would cry desperately because the loss of your mother still haunted you. And I listened, and when you had finished, I would hold you and let you cry on my shoulder and tell you over and over again, because you never really seemed to understand, that I loved you.

I remember you once told me that, had you been given the choice, you would have gladly died in your mother's place. And oh, how you wished that your love had been enough to keep her from death.

I wish it as well, but for you, Anakin.

Sometimes people described you as inhuman, even when you were still mine and not Palpatine's—but it was always in an admiring manner. They would speak of how you seemed to be able to go without sleep for days on end, to fight with a strength that you did not possess, how surely no human being could manipulate the Force as you did. Only I knew how truly human you were. To show weakness is to be human, and it was only to me that you let your weaknesses show.

Some part of me knows that all that humanity cannot have died along with you. Affection, friendship, love—surely you cannot have banished all of these from your mind, especially now, when you need them more than ever. You hated to kill—I refuse to believe that you do it so easily now without even a trace of remorse.

Some see no change in you—they think you have gone from one form of inhuman to another. But I think I know better.

It's a foolish, ridiculous hope, proven wrong every time you bear down with all your fury on yet another system. Every day, I hear the voices of those you've murdered, telling me to forget it.

But there's still good in you, Anakin.

I believe it.

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